Archive for the ‘fitness’ Category

Hey everyone. You haven’t seen me around for a while now. but I am focusing on my new venture which I told you about a while back “Rolling With Vishnu”. You can find a few new posts about my disability and how it relates to my spiritual quest, sprinkled in on rollingwithvishnu.wordpress.com. My most recent post has to do with how my disability has affected my practice of meditation.

A couple of my most popular pieces on this blog are one about a psychological anomaly which causes one to want to be an amputee, and another piece with tips for guys in wheelchairs to follow to keep their abdominal muscles in shape.

Observing this trend, my mind can’t help but start wandering. Being in a wheelchair, this is my average (uneventful) day: dragging my body around from bed to wheelchair to car, to wheelchair at work, back to car after work, to wheelchair, to sofa, to wheelchair to shower, to wheelchair, to bed. This is a lot of movement which involves tremendous stress on the upper body, which those of you with use of your legs may never have considered. All of this transferring throughout the day goes a long way toward keeping the abdominal muscles reasonably fit. My point is this:
If I were one of the amputee wanna-be people alluded to above, if I were to dispose of my legs, and the extra weight I carry around because of them, I think my abdominal muscles would be in a rough condition after a while. So these “useless” legs have a hidden purpose, all told. I joke about wanting to cut them off sometimes, but a guy in a wheelchair would never really want to be an amputee. My paralyzed legs provide a natural balance for me. Given that the United States is one of the “fattest” countries in the world, I would think there would be more overweight men who would want to be a paraplegic in order to gain the benefits of the built in work out of dragging the legs around.

The 2012 Paralympic Swimming trials are all set to go from June 14-16 at the Bismarck State College Aquatic & Wellness Center in Bismarck, ND. If you are in the area, have 3-6 hours to give and would like to play a part in making this event a success, volunteers are still needed. If you are age 8 and up, please go to www.bisparks.org to find out how you can help. Opportunities in time-keeping, hospitality, and athlete check-in are open.

The 2012 Paralympic Games will be held in London, England from August 29 to September 9. More than 4,000 athletes from 165 countries are scheduled to compete in 19 different areas of athletic prowess.

I saw my doctor the other day for an infection and we reviewed my history of UTIs. I tend to get them about once a year. He told me that this is actually quite a good track record considering I use intermittent catheters. Most patients in wheelchairs that he sees tend to get them more often than that. I feel like this is unacceptable. Is it really an inevitability or are we doing something wrong? Surely if we wash our hands and use a catheter that has just been taken out of a sealed package there should be little risk of infection. Any thoughts?

Living in the material world, businesses often will not make the necessary changes to make their establishment wheelchair-friendly unless it becomes obvious to the owner that not doing so would mean loss of revenue. Often times it seems that up-front cost of renovations are the foremost concern. Often the prospects of a burgeoning clientele base – namely the disabled community – is not taken into consideration.

But this is not just an American problem. In Britain, the Equality Act 2010 appears to cover the same ground, roughly, as the Americans with Disabilities Act. London, dwelling place of 1.4 million disabled people and destination to large numbers of tourists every year, does not appear to be exempt from the problem of accessibility. British people with disabilities encounter the same every-day aggravations that I do; stores, restaurants and other public areas are not always accessible. I can’t say I am surprised.

The company, I feel, recognizes that many disabled people’s quality of life could be greatly improved. Inactivity comes from feeling disconnected from the outside world, feeling confined to one’s home. Ability Lifting Solutions is devoted to providing its clientele with a much more flexible quality of life, more options, more freedom. And in the end, that really is the answer, isn’t it?

They work with the customer to “suit your needs and budget” even if all you need is a lift to get you up one step. The work is all very modern, sleep and aesthetically pleasing. Domestic accessibility has come a long way since I was growing up and at my parents’ house we had a mechanical device in a closet renovated into an elevator shaft.

Ability Lifting Solutions’ Web site does not discuss pricing outright, but it does have a “Get a Quote” link. Surely with this company around there is a convenient, affordable way for companies to do as the Equality Act 2010 says. Surely it is worth a look if you are a business owner or a disabled resident in the U.K. or mainland Europe. Even if you are not, it is still worth a look to see how their product stacks up against what is available where you live.

Below is a link to a story about LaKay Roberts, a child with cerebral palsy who is physically able to use a walker. But her school is trying to ban her from using it, citing concerns that she will fall in the hall and get hurt. I am in a wheelchair but when I was in school, I was able to strap in to a full body brace and use a walker. And I fell occasionally. But that was the worst that happened. Because you know what I did after I fell? I got up. When I was in school and I had my daily physical therapy session which included my “walking” in my braces and walker/crutches, I had a therapist or teacher or classmate who walked with me. Are you telling me this school can’t afford to give that much to this child so that she might have the opportunity to develop a certain degree of independence. Independence does not come easy. It requires that we first depend on another. That we have someone to lean on, someone to help us up when we fall. Because as we strive for independence, it will inevitably happen. We fall. But we get back up. And when we do, we are that much closer to freedom.

I like to raise questions on this blog, so I am going to raise one now.
Suppose you have a conversation with an older person. At the end of the conversation you find out that person is even older than you expected, lets say 90. This 90-year old was a very sharp, lucid conversationalist. And you remark to another that the 90-year old “did really good, considering their age.”

What just happened here? Did you A) compliment the person, or B) expect too little of the person based solely on the number of years they’ve been around, and in fact suggest a presumed disability?
Just asking. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m extremely touchy on the subject, just wonder what your thoughts are.